This statue on the left is a memorial to a particular girl.. as the story goes,
this girl had contracted a fatal disease(leukemia, I believe) as a result of
the atomic bomb. The woman in the middle is shielding her children from the
blast.. 

The girl was soon hospitalized.. she believed that if she folded 1000
paper origami cranes, then she would be healed. Different accounts tell it
differently.. some say she folded 996 before she died, while others have her
folding 1006. In any case, it is a story of hope and faith, one that only a 
child can have so easily, but that we all need.

Even now, children fold the 1000 cranes and bring them to these memorials.
My freshman year of high school, a friend of mine passed away. He was in my
Japanese class, and we folded one thousand cranes in his memory.

Related pictures:
Epicenter, Center for Industrial Promotions
Eternal flame and arch